Chapter 4
Chapter four
Luna
On my way back to my apartment inside the Repository, I hit the button on my earpiece I almost always wore.
“You there, Jade?”
“Well, I’ve got to be somewhere, but yeah, there will do.”
“So, I’ve got news. I’m going to a fancy party. Apparently, Damien and I are going to pretend to be engaged.”
“Oh…pretend… Riiiiight…”
“Hush. He looks at me like I’m exasperating most of the time. Pretty sure he can’t stand me.”
“Hmm, I feel like I’ve heard all this before? Yeah. Yeah, I have. Remember your ex?”
“No. I don’t,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Now, I know what you’re thinking—“
“Thinking about what to name your baby with Damien—“
“Luna Rookwood, working with a partner?” I said, talking over her too loudly to shut her up. “Has she lost her mind? Maybe. But Damien says this Shadow Fang thing might actually exist, and if it can…” I shrugged. “If it can help, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.”
“I know. I get it. How about Monica for a baby name?”
“Oh my god, Jade,” I said, stepping over a questionable puddle on the sidewalk.
“Tell me the truth. Do you trust this Damien dude?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I’m about ninety percent sure he’s hiding something major. But right now, our goals align, and that’s enough.”
“Is it?” Jade asked.
With a sigh, I fiddled with a loose thread on my Rolling Stones T-shirt. “It has to be.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt again. I know your heart, Luna, and it’s too big for your own good.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“I know. Oh, and what’s this I hear about etiquette lessons?”
I grimaced. “You heard that part? Don’t remind me. How hard can it be to pretend to be engaged to a total mystery man while infiltrating a supernatural gala?”
“About as hard as stealing from a dragon’s hoard?” she suggested innocently.
“That was one time!” I protested. “And we gave most of it back.”
Jade’s laughter warmed my heart.
My phone buzzed from my pocket. A text from Damien.
Please meet me at my temporary residence at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. I’ll send the address.
I groaned. “I need to eat before I stab someone. Talk to you later?”
“Obviously. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
The next morning, I awoke with a severe hankering to learn which fork to use when dining with supernatural aristocracy.
Joy.
So this was what true excitement felt like.
I dragged myself out of bed to get ready, muttering all my favorite swear words, this time in seven different languages.
Damien’s “temporary residence” turned out to be a historic mansion in the Garden District.
Wrought-iron gates opened to a curved driveway, where a fountain featuring actual marble nymphs burbled cheerfully among tended gardens.
The house itself was a stunning antebellum masterpiece with columns, balconies, and the unmistakable air of old money.
The humid New Orleans morning suffocated me as I stood at the bottom of the sweeping front steps, making my simple jeans and Metallica T-shirt feel even more out of place against the mansion’s grandeur.
“Temporary, huh?” I said as Damien himself answered the massive front door. “What’s your permanent place? A castle?”
He leaned against the doorframe with unexpected casualness, two buttons of his white pressed shirt undone.
“Versailles, actually. The tourists make it difficult to enjoy my morning coffee in peace, though. I’ve stopped answering the front door to avoid Americans in fanny packs asking where Marie Antoinette kept her cake. ”
My jaw dropped open. “Did you just make a joke, Mr. Cross?”
“No.” The corner of his mouth quirked up slightly, and he stepped aside to let me in. “I did not.”
I was already ignoring him when I stepped into an entrance hall. Crystal chandeliers cast rainbow prisms across marble floors. Artwork hung on walls covered in what appeared to be actual silk. Antique furniture stood in perfectly arranged groupings.
The cool air inside smelled of sandalwood and something older, like the pages of antique books. It was a striking contrast to the perpetual mustiness of my tiny closet/apartment.
“So this is how the one percent lives,” I murmured, turning slowly to take it all in. “No sex rooms or dungeons? I’m disappointed.”
Damien paused behind me, so close I could feel the coolness radiating from his body. “The dungeon is being renovated,” he said dryly. “And I converted the sex room into an office. The sex swing in there was terrible for the spine.”
Yeah, I still had no idea if he was joking or not. I was beginning to suspect that beneath his composed exterior, Damien Cross might actually possess something resembling a personality.
He led me through the house to what appeared to be a formal dining room. A massive table of dark, polished wood dominated the space, currently set with enough silverware, glasses, and plates to confuse a catering company.
“Please tell me we’re not going through a full formal dinner,” I said, eyeing the multiple forks with suspicion.
“The only things I ate this morning were a granola bar, a pickle, and a raisin I happened to find in my pocket, so I might be tempted to stab you with one of these forks if my blood sugar drops any lower.”
Damien walked to a sideboard and lifted a silver dome, revealing a plate of pastries, fresh fruit, and what looked like my favorite breakfast sandwich from the café around the corner from the Repository.
“Felix mentioned your random and unusual diet,” he explained, noticing my surprise. “I thought this might make the etiquette lesson more tolerable.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Dig in.” He nodded down at the table, and then his eyes met mine with surprising warmth. “Hungry partners make terrible students, and I need you at your best.”
I grabbed the breakfast sandwich, trying not to appear too eager. “So the table setting is just for show?”
“Merely for demonstration purposes,” he said, gesturing for me to take a seat.
Instead of sitting at the opposite end as I expected, he took the chair adjacent to mine, close enough that I could see the intricate blue patterns in his irises.
“Before we begin,” he said, his tone growing serious, “I should explain that supernatural gatherings operate under different rules than human ones. There are protocols that, if broken, can have consequences beyond simple social embarrassment.”
“Yes, you’ve explained this.” I sighed wearily. “But such as?”
“Such as inadvertently pledging yourself to a century of service to a Fae Lord because you accepted a drink with your left hand instead of your right,” he said. “Or insulting a vampire elder badly enough to warrant a blood duel by failing to acknowledge their age ranking.”
I blinked. “That escalated quickly.”
He nodded. “The supernatural world maintains many old traditions because they’re tied to magical bonds and obligations. What might seem like harmless etiquette to you could be binding contracts or deadly insults.”
“Okay.” I took another bite of my sandwich, chewed, and swallowed it down. “Give me the crash course in ‘How Not to Get Yourself Magically Enslaved or Murdered at a Fancy Party.’”
Damien’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled genuinely. It transformed his face from merely hot to something that made my heart skip a beat.
Damn it, Luna. Get your head out from between your legs and focus.
“First,” he said, leaning toward me, “basic greetings. You’ll need to know how to properly address the different factions.”
What followed was an intensive hour of supernatural protocol that made my head spin.
Vampire houses had elaborate greeting rituals depending on their age and status.
Fae Courts required specific phrasing that avoided giving offense or making promises.
Witch covens had their own hierarchies that needed to be acknowledged.
And apparently there were at least seventeen different ways to accept a drink without accidentally binding yourself to magical terms.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, after failing to correctly remember the proper greeting for the third time. “How does anyone keep all this straight? Do you all just sit around memorizing how to properly compliment a fairy’s wings without accidentally offering to bear their children?”
To my surprise, Damien threw his head back and laughed, a rich, melodious sound that filled the entire room.
“You have no idea how accurate that is,” he said when his laughter subsided. “I once witnessed a young vampire lord tell a fae princess her wings reminded him of the finest silk from the Ming Dynasty, only to discover he’d proposed a breeding arrangement.”
“No way. What happened?”
His eyes danced with mischief. “Let’s just say their triplets are attending university in Switzerland now.”
I laughed. “So what happened to ‘most supernaturals grow up learning these customs’?”
“Most do,” he said with a slight shrug. “For those who don’t, there are learning opportunities. Often humiliating ones.”
“Like accidentally marrying a fairy?”
“That’s one of the more benign outcomes. For you, we’ll focus on the essentials and rely on your status as my fiancée to excuse minor lapses.”
“Lucky me,” I muttered. “So I just have to stay attached to you all night and try not to speak unless spoken to? Like some Victorian child bride?”
A shadow crossed his face. “That’s not what I meant. You’re my partner in this endeavor, Luna, not my accessory.”
“Then we need a better approach,” I said, straightening. “I need to be able to move around and gather information independently if necessary.”
Damien nodded thoughtfully. “Then we need to establish your background thoroughly enough to withstand scrutiny. No one who knows anything about me would believe I’d choose a partner for decorative purposes anyway.
We need something more substantial. I’ve spent years avoiding partners who couldn’t challenge me intellectually. It makes for tedious evenings.”
I couldn’t decide if that was an insult to my appearance or a compliment to my intelligence. Maybe both.